This application relates to a medical accessory holder for use in reprocessing and conditioning. In particular, it relates to a single-use holder for retaining the valves of a flexible medical endoscope during reprocessing and conditioning. The term “reprocessing” is used herein to refer to cleaning and high level disinfection of medical equipment following its use on a patient. The term “conditioning” is used herein to refer to maintaining medical equipment at the disinfection level achieved during the previous reprocessing procedure.
Following use on a patient, medical equipment must be reprocessed to, and maintained at, a high level of disinfection. This is a particular necessity for medical equipment utilized in invasive procedures, such as flexible medical endoscopes, with which the present application is primarily concerned.
Flexible medical endoscopes typically comprise a number of channels for the delivery of air, water, other fluids, or devices. These may be utilized for the delivery of such fluids to the interior of a patient where this is required during a medical procedure, for the removal of fluid (by suction) from the interior of a patient, or for cleaning the viewing window or lens of the endoscope. Operation of these channels is typically controlled by a number of valves (sometimes referred to as pistons or adaptors) operated remotely by the practitioner carrying out the endoscopy procedure.
During reprocessing of a flexible medical endoscope following its use on a patient, the valves must be removed, in order that each of the channels can be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. The valves themselves must also be subjected to the same reprocessing regime to bring them to a state of high level disinfection. Typically, reprocessing of flexible medical endoscopes and associated accessories such as the valves, is now carried out on an automated basis using a specially designed reprocessing machine, known as an Automated Endoscope Reprocessor (AER) machine or an Endoscope Washer Disinfector (EWD). In a busy hospital endoscopy department, this can cause problems, since the valves specific to a particular endoscope can easily become separated from that endoscope during reprocessing. This can lead to cross-contamination if a set of valves associated with one endoscope are accidentally inserted into a different endoscope.
In addition, the valves are spring activated and as a result, not all surfaces are exposed during reprocessing, which may present a cross-infection risk.
Accessories such as endoscope valves are often placed into auxiliary containers, before being placed into the AER machine along with the endoscope. Ideally, such auxiliary containers should only be used once, and then disposed of, in order to eliminate them as a possible source of cross-contamination between different endoscopes which may be reprocessed using the same machine. Indeed, concerns regarding the levels of disinfection to which endoscopes and their associated accessories are processed, and at which they are maintained, have led to increasingly strict guidelines regulating the manner in which reprocessing is carried out. For example, the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) Guidelines for Decontamination of Equipment for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy stipulate that such auxiliary containers must be single use items, and must be disposed of after use. In practice however, this ideal is not always achieved, in particular since it is often not possible to tell whether a container has been used previously.
The Applicant's own Patent Publication No. GB 2,485,818 discloses a container for housing a medical accessory during reprocessing. The container has a closure mechanism adapted such that once closed it cannot be re-opened without the container breaking. The container is thus rendered suitable only for single use.
The Applicant's own Patent Publication No. GB 2,513,643 discloses a holder for retaining a medical accessory during reprocessing. The holder has a retaining mechanism adapted such that once engaged the medical accessory cannot be removed without the holder breaking. The holder is thus rendered suitable only for single use.
The Applicant's own Patent Publication No. GB 2,483,741 discloses a method and apparatus, referred to as a conditioning station, for conditioning a flexible medical endoscope by delivering a conditioning agent to the internal channels of the endoscope.